


no one to come for you

by Ponderosa (ponderosa121)



Category: Prodigal Son (TV 2019)
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, Anal Sex, Anxiety Disorder, Canon-Typical Violence, Daddy Issues, Dreams vs. Reality, Drug Withdrawal, Dubious Consent, Episode Related, Hallucinations, Hopeful Ending, Incest, Kidnapping, M/M, Memory Loss, Mental Instability, Parent/Child Incest, Psychosis, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-01
Updated: 2020-01-02
Packaged: 2021-02-25 03:06:43
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 13,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22008940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa121/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: Malcolm loses track of time and reality at about the same pace. Martin’s with him more often now, sometimes even when John has come to check on him. His only gauge of how long he’s been shackled is the bruising on his skin, the fade from dark purple towards spotty yellow that says they’ve crossed into the new year. The withdrawal symptoms come and go, but in his most lucid moments, there’s nothing left for him to do but sit and meditate and try very hard to remain sane.[Set post-s1e10]
Relationships: Malcolm Bright/Martin Whitly
Comments: 29
Kudos: 175





	1. something truly special

**Author's Note:**

> Content notes: Canon-typical violence for being kidnapped, held prisoner, and forced off your meds. The incestuous bits in chapter one are heavy dub-con in that it's a bit of want and don't want coupled with a vague menace. Chapter two is explicit but more arguably consenting incest, and if you need or want any content notes or explainers or if I'm missing any tags/warnings, please feel free to let me know.

Malcolm opens his eyes to darkness and the sound of tires on a roadway. Jerking his head up sends pain lancing through him, sharp as knives. That’s not great. Wincing away the flash of hurt, he catalogs the ones that linger: the dull throb at his jaw and the back of his skull, the ache in his right shoulder from the position it’s forced into, the discomfort of something hard and metal digging into his thigh. His breath comes back to him warm and stale; there’s something pulled up over his head, the material thick enough to block any light.

Paul Lazar. John Watkins. The memories rush back and Malcolm resists the urge to struggle in favor of carefully and methodically assessing his surroundings. He needs to stay focused. Curling his fingers he finds the smoothness of duct tape binding his hands and wrists. His ankles and knees are also tightly bound with little to no wiggle room. There’s too much space above him and not enough behind him so he’s not in a trunk or a station wagon. SUV, he guesses, and probably an older model based on the sound of the suspension. He’s been tucked behind the second row of seats and if John’s M.O. hasn’t changed, covered in a thick canvas tarp. He searches with his fingers to confirm that it’s a bracket in the flooring that had been bruising his thigh, and when he finds it, a chill like ice slides between his ribs.

There’s no way to tell how long he’s been out or which direction they’re headed. The only thing he can say with certainty is that it’s far enough from the city to be free of the snarl of traffic and they’re not on a large thoroughfare; the road has gentle curves, probably only two-lanes, and isn’t very busy.

Malcolm wrenches his eyes shut and tries desperately to remember where Martin had taken him as a boy. If there’s any chance he can dig up a hidden memory of that mysterious trip that’s a big black hole in his boyhood, now would be a great time.

There’s nothing. Of course, there’s nothing.

The panic is an awful flutter behind his breastbone, a chill creeping into his guts leaving shards of glass scattered through his insides. He carefully measures his breath lungful by lungful and slowly owns the terror that threatens to rip him to shreds. He manages reasonably well until John’s hitting the breaks to take a left onto a road that begins as gravel and becomes something rutted and winding. When the trunk lifts with a squeal and John rips the canvas off to blind him with a tactical flashlight, Malcolm can’t contain the screaming any longer.

John seems unconcerned at the noise as he drags Malcolm out of the car and across the frozen ground. There’s a breeze hissing through trees, but by the time Malcolm’s eyes readjust there’s no chance to look for the silhouette of a ridgeline or any other distinguishing terrain. The knowledge that he’s probably going to die out here turns into a knot in his throat and briefly silences him, leaving him panting fast and quick, never enough air for his lungs for another cry for help as he’s hauled inside and down into a basement. The room looks to have been well-used for this purpose because set in the floor is an ominous drain and a pair of manacles on a heavy chain.

He’s left on the floor, and John pulls a gun from the back of his waistband to hold it casually on Malcolm as he flips open the lid of a dented red toolbox with the toe of his boot. “You know how this is going to go,” John tells him. He crouches to pull out a box cutter and thumbs the blade into view.

“I’m not sure I do,” Malcolm replies, catching his breath, his throat raw as he gulps for air. The fear comes and goes in waves. His breath is loud in the silence as his gaze darts around. Slate floor, nothing on the walls, there’s not much in the room for context clues. There are a few pieces of furniture well out of reach and covered with tarps.

“On your front.”

Malcolm weighs the merits of resisting and there aren’t many. If the knife is for the tape--he very much hopes it is--having his hands free evens the odds significantly. With a soft grunt he rolls obediently onto his belly, the cold of the stone leaching what little heat he has left in his body.

Unfortunately, John has had a lot of practice at this, and the odds remain in his favor as he drops down, straddling Malcolm’s legs to pin him. The knife rips through the tape and Malcolm isn’t fast enough or strong enough to buck him off and get free. His thrashing only earns him the hard smack of stone against his cheek and John’s hand bearing down on the crown of his head.

“This is you making things difficult on yourself,” John says.

Was that the sort of thing John’s grandfather Benjamin had told him when he’d been locked in the closet? Malcolm sucks a breath in through his teeth and forcibly eases the tension in his muscles. “Story of my life,” Malcolm says glibly as John manhandles him. His fingers twist as John wrenches his arm back and he feels the bite of metal closing around his wrists. Usually, cuffs closing on him is a much more welcome sensation. “Well, except for the whole part where my father was secretly a serial killer thereby setting me up for a lifetime of therapy and self-destructive choices.”

John ramps up the pressure, the hand on Malcolm’s head grinding him into the floor. Stars blossom behind his eyes and Malcolm’s harsh exhale sends grit skittering across the stone. “Your dad tried to do right by you,” John says. The other cuff clicks into place. “He taught you everything he knew. You told me that yourself.”

Malcolm struggles to take a full breath. He closes his eyes and embraces the pain flowing through him, the sharp and searing hurt, the gritty ache where he’ll be wearing bruises.

“Think on that, little Malcolm,” John says, and after giving him one last push, stands up and leaves him alone, shackled in the cold, dark silence.

*

There’s not enough light for him to truly see by, only enough for his brain to make nonsense shapes out of the shadows. With a bit of effort, he manages to sit up and slip his arms over his head. Thanks morning yoga routine and always being chosen to play the hostage in training scenarios, he thinks as he rips the tape from his legs and scrambles up onto his knees.

He tests the cuffs and chain and bolt one after the other, but they’re all solidly made and he doesn’t waste his strength trying to rip them out of the floor. Instead, he gauges his reach: how far he can move, how far he can stretch out a foot. There’s the possibility that he could remove one shoe, tie it to the other by the laces and kick it out to snag that toolbox.

The aftermath of the adrenaline and the cold and the exhaustion though…. His stomach churns and his hands are full of pins and needles to the point that they’re nearly numb. Plucking at the tape was difficult enough, he’s not sure he can work his fingers well enough at the moment to tie a solid knot, and without being able to properly see his target it might be better to wait and bide his time. If John had wanted to kill him, he could’ve done it cleanly and neatly like he’d taken care of Shannon. There’s a chance Malcolm can talk John out of whatever it is he’s planning and he might be able to walk out of here without any collateral damage.

Sighing, Malcolm flexes his hands and gathers his knees to his chest to conserve a bit of heat. The darkness presses around him, cold and looming. Slowly, the feeling comes back to his hands and the nausea passes.

Between one moment and the next, there’s the sound of someone in the room with him. Something dragging across the floor. Coming closer with slow, shuffling footsteps.

“Hello?” Malcolm calls out, shifting his weight to sit on his heels. The chain clinks against the floor as he brings his hands up. “John?”

Suddenly there’s light. Not from the bulbs lining the wall or the searing LED beam of the tactical flashlight, but a dim greenish glow from a corridor that he hadn’t seen before. He squints and cocks his head. He recognizes that corridor.

Malcolm rises to his feet and finds his hands closing around the bars of his father’s old cell. The corridor grows longer, the promise of an exit stretching further and further away. “I’m dreaming,” he tells himself, unable to move now that he’s named it. “This is a dream.”

He feels the whisper of Martin’s breath against the back of his neck and screws his eyes shut. “Oh, but isn’t it better to be in here with me, Malcolm, my boy?” Martin asks. His body presses against Malcolm’s back to crush him against the bars, and it feels overwhemingly, terrifyingly real. The heat of Martin’s body soaks into Malcolm’s skin, and Malcolm’s insides squirm. He’s so cold that even if he had anywhere to run, the promise of warmth is hard to want to pull away from. “Where you are right now isn’t very nice.”

“I’m being held prisoner, of course it’s not nice.”

“Go on, tell me more about what a hardship it is to be imprisoned,” Martin drawls.

“I’m not really in Claremont. I’m not here and you aren’t either.”

“Which is a real pity if you ask me...,” Martin says, and his hands slide down Malcolm’s arms to bracket them. His hands fold over Malcolm’s and hold them even tighter to the bars. His right thumb drifts over Malcolm’s, and Malcolm can feel the hard scrape of the callus built up on the inside of Martin’s knuckle from years of holding drawing pencils and scalpels. “Because I can definitely warm you up, son.”

Devastatingly gentle lips brush against slope of his neck and Malcolm gasps as the heat of Martin’s body turns into a blaze hot enough to sear his skin.

He wakes screaming and scrabbling, his hands gripping white-knuckled around the chain tethered to the bolt. He twists as he recognizes where he is and finds the heat coming from the sizzling orange of an electric space heater sitting near the toolbox, and beside that on a metal folding chair sits John.

“Hungry?” he asks with a sort of casual interest. He bites a slice of apple off the tip of a hunting knife. The crunch of it sounds like cartilage crumbling under a fist. He holds the squared core of what’s left of the rest of the apple between his thumb and forefinger.

“Not really,” Malcolm says in all honesty as he shakes his hands free of the chain. He scrubs his palms over his face, trying to escape the last shreds of the dream. The smell of the metal clings to his skin, iron like blood. When is he hungry though? His relationship with food is as complicated as the one with his mother. Still, keeping up his strength is going to be important. “But I’d eat if you put something in front of me.”

“Every good boy needs to learn good table manners,” John says, and Malcolm can hear the echo of Matilda in his tone. He wipes the blade of the knife off on his pants and sheathes it before he reaches down into a paper bag to trade the remains of the apple for a Power Bar and a plastic bottle of water. He holds them out, both in one hand. It’s possible he’d stopped at a gas station on the way, or there could be a store nearby. 

Malcolm accepts them and gives the bottle a little wiggle to signal gratitude. “Thanks,” he says, and sets the water beside him to unwrap the bar. So, John’s not planning on starving him, not like the others he’d kept buried in the junkyard. That’s a good sign. Hopefully. “How well did you know the Surgeon, John?”

“Your dad.”

Malcolm chews slowly on the mouthful of Power Bar and on the idea that it’s very important to John that Malcolm give Martin the recognition of being his flesh and blood. Absent father, abusive grandfather, it could be that Martin represents a parental ideal to John. A father figure in addition to mentor. “Sorry,” he says, with a slight nod of contrition. “How well did you know my father?”

John watches him keenly. “I knew your father intimately.”

An interesting choice of words, intentional or otherwise. He could be trying to imply that he knows Martin better than his own son does. Or maybe the Surgeon wasn’t just a mentor to John. Maybe he was a mentor and a…. A what? A lover? That doesn’t feel quite right. Martin’s made enough sly innuendo in their time together that Malcolm has long known he likely isn’t straight, but while none of his kills were sexually motivated, some of John’s definitely were and all of those victims were women who fit a particular profile. He sticks with his first theory.

“Do you think you knew him better than I did?”

John gives a contemptuous laugh at the blatant question. “I think I know what he wanted for you better than you do.”

Fear and excitement seizes Malcolm, and he’s not entirely sure he’s managed to hide his reaction. “And what’s that?” he asks, his mouth and throat suddenly very, very dry.

“He wanted to _mold_ you. To make you into something truly special.”

A vague and unhelpful answer that’s something Malcolm could have come up with on his own. Of course his narcissistic, murderous father would want to shape him into something. But what sort of something? Another killer? A willing and avid witness? John knows so much about the missing time in his past. Malcolm wants desperately to wrench it out of him.

He studies the way John looks at him. It’s nothing like Martin’s keen focus. Oh, it’s just as sharp-edged and affable on the surface, but something far more menacing lurks beneath the surface. Martin at least loves him--or thinks he does in that way where certain parents believe they own their children. “And what do you want for me, John? You’re keeping me alive here for a reason.”

“I intend to help him.” The chair rattles as John stands and Malcolm shies away as he draws near. Hard fingers grip his chin and Malcolm lifts his gaze. John’s smile is friendly--benevolent, even. “And that starts with setting you free.”

“Free of what?”

“You’re a sinner Malcolm. A wicked sinner.”

The tremor in Malcolm’s hand starts up. He has no leverage, too rattled from the dream to have put himself in an advantageous position before taking what John offered him. “I don’t take recreational drugs. I’m just on medication that’s prescribed to me. Regular doses, only what I need.”

“You only think you need that poison, but coming off that shit is just a bonus. That’s not your sin, Malcolm. Not your true corruption.” John twists Malcolm’s head to the side and there’s a carved wooden stand mirror there, a tarp puddled at its base. Malcolm stares at his own wide-eyed reflection. “You think I haven’t been keeping an eye on you? That I haven’t figured out what kind of dreams you have when you’re not chasing that girl through your nightmares?”

Malcolm flinches as John crouches down next to him. The few bites of food in his stomach turn to lead.

“I _know_ the kind of filthy sex you buy. How you pay to be strapped down and how you beg for it,” John hisses. His smile is gone, the flash of his teeth near Malcolm’s cheek an angry snarl. “Daddy, please. Daddy, _daddy._ Your kind of rot runs deep, and I’m going to burn it out of you.”

*

Panic.... Inability to concentrate…. Psychosis.... Malcolm counts down the time until the worst of the benzo withdrawal is likely to hit him. He’s been here for two days now, pissing into a drain with a bucket to shit in and fighting the fear that without the meds, whatever parts of him that aren’t broken will be soon. John’s left him with the heater. It sits tucked up against the wall, always on, the air around it rippling and the glow of it bleeding angry and orange through the room.

His wrists are raw, the cuffs loose enough to chafe and tight enough that the base of his thumb is bruised from trying to force it through the metal. John hasn’t visited him today yet. Yesterday he’d come by twice: once in the morning with a pair of power bars and a bottle of water and once in the evening with the bucket. He clenches his teeth as another wave of anxiety crushes his chest and leaves him struggling to even out his breathing.

Seated cross-legged and trying vainly to meditate, a cramp ripples through Malcolm’s guts and with it comes the start of the nausea. He curls forward and breathes in quick and shallow until the sensation passes. If he doesn’t try for the toolbox now, he might not have enough strength and coordination to do it.

With trembling fingers, Malcolm grabs the empty plastic bucket and unties his shoes. He relaces one carefully to leave one end as long as possible and knots other near the eyelet, slipping it back on to his foot and giving it a hard tug to see if it’ll stay on. Good enough. He makes a daisy chain with the other shoe and the handle of the bucket, and stretches his leg out to swing it wide. The plastic clatters as it drags against the stone. It’s far from quiet, but he hasn’t exactly been trying to stay silent down here and banging and yelling hadn’t summoned John before.

“Please let this work,” he breathes, and does a side plank as he aims a kick to swing the bucket towards the the toolbox. He nearly loses the shoe on his foot as it rattles past the toolbox, the bucket whipped far too quickly from the centripetal force. “Fuck.”

Another try and another miss. And again. He pauses, resting on his belly and breathing heavily as his heart cracks against his ribs. The floor for a moment stops feeling like slate, the surface shifting and breathing with him like some living thing. Cursing, Malcolm forces himself up again. Hold, stretch, kick. He’d gotten close. He can do this.

Eventually, the plastic catches and the lip of the bucket hooks to the open lid of the toolbox. Malcolm grins in vicious triumph as he slowly draws his leg back, carefully inching the box towards him. It skids across the stone, and eventually he can sit up and reel in his makeshift grapple with his hands. He’s on his hands and knees reaching forward for his prize when he hears the slow clap of applause from near the mirror.

“Ooh, very clever!” Martin says pridefully.

Malcolm swallows hard and focuses on the red of the box. His stomach turns over on itself when he notices that it’s the same red as the sweater Martin had been arrested in. He hauls the toolbox to him, digging through it for something useful. The box cutter is gone. There’s nothing so convenient as bolt cutters or something small and slender for him to try and pick the locks, but there is a screwdriver and he immediately turns to the bolt, using it as leverage to wedge the screwdriver through a link near his wrist to pry it apart. Welded, the link doesn’t budge. He tries until his hands ache. Until the point of the screwdriver has skid across the slate so many times it’s left marks like branched lightning in the stone. Until he’s gasping and praying and sobbing in turns.

“You know what you need to do,” Martin tells him. He’s been talking to Malcolm the whole time, sometimes soothingly, sometimes shouting.

“Shut up,” he says, and wipes away the sweat gathering at his temples. He could try and force the catch, but on the chance that he’s able to find something small enough to pick the lock or even steal the key somehow, ruining the mechanism by brute force would be risky. He digs a wrench out of the toolbox, shoves it through the bolt and kicks at it with the heel of his foot, trying to get it to budge. Probably it’s welded to something else beneath the stone because it’s about as effective as kicking a fire plug.

Martin crouches down beside the mirror, his fingers laced loosely together between his thighs. He clucks his tongue. “Malcolm, please, you’re going to hurt yourself if you keep carrying on like this.”

He keeps kicking anyway. Sometimes he even thinks he feels the metal shift, but then again, the ground beneath him has returned to quivering and there’s an awful rushing and roaring in his ears.

“You only need to ask me, you know.”

Finally, Malcolm looks up. His reflection is sweaty and filthy and ragged in comparison to the pristine white of Martin’s prison garb. Even in the hazy orange glow from the heater the white is so bright it seems to glow. “Ask you what?” Malcolm says, as tired of fighting the hallucination as he is the metal.

“To help you, of course.”

“How can you help me?” Malcolm sits back defeated and gestures with the wrench. “You’re not even here.”

“Oh, my boy,” Martin says, and between blinks he’s no longer beside the mirror, but hovering above Malcolm. He takes Malcolm’s face in his hands and leans down until the whisper of his breath skates across Malcolm’s cheek. “I’m always with you.”

Malcolm’s eyes flutter and sting. His heart speeds. He tries to grip the wrench harder, to use it as an anchor, but it slips from his useless fingers and he hears it clatter to the stone as if it’s in another room. Darkness presses at the edge of his vision, dims it until the only thing he can see is Martin smiling at him. He’s going to pass out.

It’s not a mercy that he doesn’t collapse and crack his head on the floor, not when he imagines Martin’s hands catching him and carefully guiding him down. The brush of tender fingers pushing sweat-slick strands away from his forehead. The kiss that starts chastely at the corner of his mouth and then consumes him like a fever.

*

Malcolm comes to shivering and sweating. His shoes are gone. The toolbox is closed and moved up against the far wall beside the heater, well out of his reach. The bucket is upended and two bottles of water sit atop it. This time, there’s no food.

Fine by him. He’s fairly certain he wouldn’t be able to keep anything down anyway. He can still feel the echo of Martin’s hands on him, and he claws at his shirtfront to distract from it because the worst part--and this is always the worst part--deep down, he wants that feeling to linger.

“John’s right,” he says wryly to his reflection. He grabs one of the bottles and drains down half of it in a couple swallows. He draws his knees up and scrapes his teeth over his lip. He can still feel Martin there, too, the brush of his beard and the lick of his tongue. Malcolm tries to shake it away, but beyond the kiss there’s more of the dream waiting, scratching and tapping at the edges of his memory like winter branches on glass.

He shivers at the lingering echo from the swipe of Malcolm’s thumb--the rasp of that callus across his cheek--and then when he’d quit trying to wake himself up and just let it happen, the hot push of a cock past his lips. If he tries, he can hear the sound of his own needy whine--the one that had cut short as Martin filled his mouth, and the moan that followed desperate and hungry.

Malcolm licks water off his lip and his own reflection grins back at him, dressed in a cream cardigan instead of a bloodied button-down. _The rot runs deep._

He hangs his head and turns away from the mirror.

*

Malcolm loses track of time and reality at about the same pace. Martin’s with him more often now, sometimes even when John has come to check on him. His only gauge of how long he’s been shackled is the bruising on his skin, the fade from dark purple towards spotty yellow that says they’ve crossed into the new year. The withdrawal symptoms come and go, but in his most lucid moments, there’s nothing left for him to do but sit and meditate and try very hard to remain sane.

He’s been force fed something liquid and nourishing at least three times by a tube slid down his throat. Martin cracks sly jokes about Malcolm’s lack of a gag reflex when John appears again with the funnel and tube. He doesn’t fight it this time when John grabs fistfuls of his hair and forces his head back, just flinches and waits and wishes Martin would shut up.

When there’s liquid sloshing in his belly and John is sliding the tube out of his throat, Malcolm strikes. The can of meal replacement bounces off the stone, and he manages to bring John crashing down onto his hip. But he’s not lucky enough to cause a break and not close enough to whip the chain around John’s neck. John kicks him off and rolls easily out of reach.

“Nice try,” he says, picking himself up. He’s limping at least as he bends to retrieve the empty can and the funnel. “It’s a good sign that you still have a fight in you.”

“Thanks,” Malcolm says. He brings his hands up to his temple. There’s a bit of blood trickling down from a cut above his eye. Squinting towards the mirror he’s pretty sure it doesn’t need stitches.

“But you don’t need to fight me, Malcolm, you need to fight the evil inside you.”

Malcolm presses his lips together. As if he hasn’t been doing that for half his life. “I’ll take it under advisement,” he says.

*

The thing about benzo withdrawal is it doesn’t just fade away on a schedule. No, all the anxiety and restlessness it’s been trying to suppress just ramps up and up. Asleep or awake, it doesn’t matter anymore. Malcolm can only tell which is which when there’s something impossible in the room with him. Other than Martin, that is, who comes and goes at all hours of the day now, flickering in time.

Sometimes he sits shoulder to shoulder with Malcolm dressed in red and tells him stories using voices like he did once upon a time, when he’d perch on the edge of Malcolm’s bed. He’s solid and warm, and the stories he tells in his charming voices are all about murder and death and blood as bright as cardinals in the snow.

Sometimes he paces back and forth in front of the mirror in his Claremont white, the tether from his belt snapped to the same bolt that Malcolm is tied to. He suggests all the ways in which Malcolm can kill John. _Buck up, get it together, my boy. One chance is all you need._

Sometimes he’s in an orange prison jumpsuit.

And sometimes…. _Sometimes…._ Sometimes he lays behind Malcolm, curls against him--the big spoon--and Malcolm stares desperately at the mirror as he rolls onto his back and welcomes the soft brush of Martin’s beard at his throat and the wet flick of his tongue. The nudge of a knee between his thighs. And he doesn’t know if he’s looking because he wants to see the way his father’s hands runs greedily over him, or because he wants John to help him make it stop.

*

One day John uncuffs him, but Malcolm’s shaking too hard to do more than lean against him as he’s taken upstairs into a bathroom. “Strip,” John tells him, and Malcolm obeys with weak fingers.

He can hardly stand, let alone bathe himself, so John does it. Stands in the tub with him, clothes turning dark in the water, and scrubs Malcolm’s skin in near scalding water until he’s raw and pink. There are fresher bruises scattered across his body, overlapping some of the old. At least he’ll know when roughly another week’s gone past. Martin sits perched on the lid of the toilet, watching silently.

He’s given new clothes: a cheap scratchy tee shirt and a pair of pajama bottoms at least one size too big. He has to hold them up with one hand as John drags him back down into the basement, and as John is clapping the metal back around his wrists, Malcolm tries desperately to pull away. “Please. Please don’t leave me here.”

“You aren’t ready yet.”

“I’m ready,” Malcolm promises. He’s lying, and he knows he’s lying. And he’s not a good enough liar to convince John it’s the truth. How can he when Martin is standing beside him with a finger pressed to his lips and whispering. _Hush, my boy. You don’t really want me gone. Not yet._

“You’re not, but you will be,” John says, and leaves him alone again with his misery.

*

Malcolm has spent most of today on his side, arms tight against his stomach. John’s still been giving him water, but he’s pretty sure there’s been no food for days. Then again, it could be acid fear eating at his insides, tearing his organs into shreds like rats making a nest. He feels fairly lucid, so he thinks he’s awake. Martin’s here with him again, looming and watchful.

He brings a wrist up in front of his face, tries to gauge the shade of the bruise in the awful ever-present orange of the heater’s glow. _I’m going to burn it out of you._ Better this than having his feet held to a literal fire, Malcolm supposes. “I’m going to get out of here,” he says.

“Of course you are,” Martin replies haughtily. He folds the front of his cardigan over itself and hugs his chest. “A Whitly wouldn’t _dream_ of dying in a basement like this.”

“Careful, you’re beginning to sound like mother. And then I’ll know I’m really losing it.”

“Hush, darling. He’s coming,” Martin says. He melts into the shadows beside the mirror, fades into nothingness as the room spins around Malcolm.

There are footsteps coming down the basement steps. Malcolm tugs at his chains to pull himself up to sitting. He stares at the mirror and his reflection. John will like seeing proof of his contemplation. His grueling crawl towards penance.

Malcolm struggles to stay upright as the footsteps come closer. His head pounds and everything around him swirls, twists like he’s being pulled down into a drain. Shrunk smaller and smaller as the world grows dark.

His head jerks up, the stone cold beneath his back. Had he been asleep? Maybe. Is he asleep? Also maybe. There’s a hand on his shoulder, he recognizes, slipping down his arm to gently lift his wrist.

“What’s happening?” he asks, brows drawing together. He struggles to sit up. Everything hurts: his empty stomach, his hips from days on stone, and his head. Especially his head.

Crouched beside him, Martin beams a smile. There’s a key in his hands and his hands are dark and wet with blood. “Daddy’s come to save you, of course.”

Malcolm blinks and looks down at his own hands, at the slick red blood coating his skin. He’s gripping a key.

His trembling fingers fit it into the lock.


	2. what needs to be done

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What if in his dreams he’s resisting not because he doesn’t want it, but because he’s afraid that he does want it? What if he never stops craving the feel of Martin’s hands on his skin?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content notes: This chapter has a touch of Gil thirsting because that's how I roll, and also the implication that Martin might some day come for Ainsley. It also has some mild gore including a mention of deer hunting/dressing a kill.

Time skips and Malcolm is in that same cramped bathroom with the blue-patterned linoleum. Skips forward, he thinks, because it’s different this time. Soap stings where his skin is scraped and raw and the water swirling down the drain is pink. There’s a washcloth hanging limp in his grasp. He’d been holding a key. There’d been a body on the floor. John’s body.

“That’s it, one step at a time,” Martin says. He’s not waiting perched on the toilet this time, but standing beside the tub, the front of his shirt wet from the spray. He’s dressed in his camping trip outfit of flannel and dark denim, but while his beard is trimmed down neatly to match it’s shot through with grey. Malcolm tries to make sense of it. “We clean you up first and make sure you can stay on your feet, and then we do what needs to be done.”

“What needs to be done?” Malcolm repeats, dazed. Martin gives his elbow a helpful nudge and he starts to run the washcloth over his skin again.

“There’s evidence that needs to be taken care of.”

Malcolm struggles to focus. “Watkins.”

Pulling a face, Martin shrugs. “Well, I have to admit there might be one or two more bodies. It wasn’t easy getting here you know. Your friends in law enforcement have been on high alert since you went missing.”

“My friends…. Is Gil okay?”

“Oh, Malcolm, really?” Martin frowns disapprovingly and tsks. “He’s twice your age.”

“It’s not like that--” Malcolm lies. At least it’s not anything beyond a wistful ache of _what if_ and that mood certainly isn’t reserved for Gil alone. “Just answer the question. Is he okay? Is the team all right?”

“I’m sure they’re fine and still terribly worried about you.”

Relief floods Malcolm, although it shouldn’t when this is his own subconscious trying to reassure him that his friends are alive, because…. “You’re not really here, are you,” Malcolm says. The water in the drain is clear now. “Are you?”

Martin pours shampoo into Malcolm’s palm, then reaches to angle the shower head a little higher. “One step at a time, my boy.”

After helping him rinse and towel off. Martin points him towards his clothes stacked in a neat pile on the countertop beside the sink. They’re the ones he’d arrived here in. “Freshly laundered,” he says as Malcolm plucks his shirt up by the shoulders. The stains are apparent, rusty on the pale blue and as Malcolm rubs his thumb over the fabric, Martin shrugs. “You can’t expect me to work miracles, Malcolm.”

He dresses, needing more than once to lean against Martin as waves of dizziness threaten to send him toppling over. His slacks hang at his hips, but not so much that they threaten to slip off him like the pair of pants John had given him. Gaining the weight back is going to be a chore.

“Now what?”

“A bit of food to get your strength back up.”

“I won’t be able to--” Malcolm closes his eyes and swallows. Even the thought of eating makes him queasy. Still, he follows Martin to the kitchen with stumbling, wobbly steps.

“You’ve been drinking your meals for a while now. Not many by the looks of it, which is part of what’s keeping you fuzzy-headed,” Martin says, and nods towards the trash can. There are empty cans of protein drinks scattered in there amongst boxes of pre-packaged frozen dinners; just like Grandma used to make. “One more down the hatch now with another in a few hours and you’ll be able to think a little more clearly.”

“Finally going to slip something down my throat?” Malcolm says, echoing those sly comments from before.

“Don’t be crude,” Martin says, and tabs open a can. “Drink your dinner and then it’s off to bed.”

Not the response he expected. Malcolm frowns and tries to puzzle out why, but he can’t think straight. He really does need the calories. Numbly, he starts drinking, and when his hand shakes too much to hold the can steady, Martin scoots in close and helps tip it towards his mouth.

*

Malcolm startles awake. He can still feel the lid of the box under his fingers, the cool of the metal as he’d popped the latches. The smell that rose up from around the girl’s folded body, sickly sweet and sour by turns. He sits up with a gasp, reaching automatically to free his wrists but they’re bare-- He blinks and wipes grit from his eyes. His wrists are bare because this isn’t his bed. But it _is_ a bed, and not the unforgiving stone of a dimly-lit murder basement.

“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Martin says from a chair near the window. He sets aside the book he’d been reading. It’s daytime and the light filtering in behind him makes the grey in his curls seem to glow.

Malcolm nearly flings himself to the floor trying to scramble away. He holds up a hand as if to ward Martin off as he processes all the information coming back to him. This room is in a house in the woods. John Watkins has been holding him here, and this is either a new phase in his “redemption”, or he is seriously losing it on a whole new level.

“Careful, Malcolm,” Martin chides. He eases forward to perch at the edge of his seat. “Ten hours of sleep, a few hundred calories, and a pill or two isn’t going to magically undo everything. I had to guess on the dosage, and though you’re lucky you aren’t dehydrated, you’re going to be unsteady on your feet for a while still.”

“Ten hours,” Malcolm repeats. He pushes aside the knitted blanket that’d been tangled over his legs and swivels to try and stand. If John had brought him up here, that could mean he was considered a guest now and not a prisoner. A whole new opportunity to free himself. “That’s a record.”

But then he remembers the blood on his hands and the click of the key, the slithering clink as the chains had slid to the floor. Malcolm rubs at his wrist and stares at the door open to the hallway. _Had_ he been brought up here by John? And if not....

“I need to go back to the basement.”

“ _Quelle surprise_ ,” Martin says dryly. “You never can just leave something alone, can you. Not even long enough to get your strength back.”

“Well I think we both know who’s to blame for any trust issues I have,” Malcolm replies. He doesn’t exactly feel steady on his feet, but at least he’s not about to take a header into the wall. Still, he does use the wall for balance, fingertips trailing over aging paint as he makes his way down the hallway, his ears pricked for any hint of sound.

Martin trails a few steps behind, and as usual, Malcolm tries to ignore him as best he can. In the kitchen, weak winter light streams in through the window. Malcolm pauses outside the basement door. He can stand now without shaking, but he shouldn’t go down there unarmed. A glance at the counter doesn’t offer an easy solution, it’s bare save for a scatter of random canisters and appliances that haven’t been updated since the seventies.

“Second drawer at your left,” Martin says. When Malcolm glances over at him, he spreads his hands wide in a gesture of innocence and adds, “What? You’re looking for a knife, aren’t you?”

Malcolm slides open the drawer and sure enough it’s full of a hodgepodge of cutlery including several large kitchen knives. His hand hovers over the choices. Chef’s knife to stab or butcher’s knife for the added weight because his swing is likely to be weak? His heart’s racing, but not this time with fear, and he grabs the chef’s knife and slams the drawer shut before his brain can run through all the ways the various blades can take someone apart.

At the bottom of the stairs, he finds John chained to the floor. The mirror is tipped over, shattered in its frame. The ugly orange glow from the heater glitters in the shards.

Martin hovers on the last step, and the extra height makes Malcolm feel as if he’s eleven again, standing in his father’s shadow. “See, not dead. Feel better?”

“The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree,” John says, and spits contemptuously. There’s a makeshift bandage tied to his leg made from strips from his own shirt. The blood that’s soaking through it is spreading slowly through the fabric of his pants, the leading edge of the stain still wet and not drying. It’s not a good sign for John. “Should’ve known you’d come back.”

“Yes. Yes, you should have,” Martin says, and with creeping horror, Malcolm wonders if the spectre behind him might actually be in the room.

“If you’re going to kill me, do it.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Malcolm says. Although there’s a part of him that wants to. He’s gripping the knife tightly as Martin moves off the last step to crowd into the space beside him. Martin’s hand flirts over his, ready to take the knife if he hands it over.

“Well, maybe that apple rolled a little ways,” John says. He huffs a quiet laugh. “You want me wrapped up like a tidy little present for your police friends, huh.”

“If you survive that cut on your leg you’re going to spend the rest of your life in prison.”

Unruffled, John’s gaze rakes over him and eventually catches and holds on the knife at his side. Malcolm is keenly aware of the nearness of Martin’s hand there. “All that rot. All that nasty filth,” John says. He catches Malcolm’s eye again and blinks lazily. “I may have failed at burning it out of you, little Malcolm, but eventually in the end Hell will do the job for me.”

Malcolm closes his eyes and breathes through his mouth. It would be so easy to turn his wrist and offer the blade to his Martin. To allow the Surgeon to do this, but he isn’t a killer like his father. He can’t be. Not even by proxy.

“Come now, let him be,” Martin says. He lays a hand on Malcolm’s shoulder and presses a kiss into his hair. “Back upstairs for a bit more rest before we go.”

John’s lip curls away from his teeth and he jerks at his chains.

Slowly, Malcolm makes his way back up the stairs and slides the knife back into the drawer. He braces himself on the counter. His fingertips tremble.

“I cleaned up so many of your messes, Doctor Whitly. This was one more mess. Another week and I could have purified that boy. Set him free from his wickedness and made him a perfect tool for _your hand_!” John’s enraged shouting roars up from the basement like gouts of flame. “How was I to know you were both sinners? I thought you were a better man.”

“Oh fuck,” Malcolm whispers, as Martin emerges from the gloom of the basement stairwell. He twists and retreats, nearly tripping over his own feet, his elbow toppling a scatter of empty plastic takeout containers. “Is this actually happening? Are you here? Physically?”

“If you’re suffering from hallucinations brought on by the psychosis, my answering yes is not going to be very helpful,” Martin says pragmatically as he eases the door shut. He slots a padlock through the latch bolted to the outside of the door and clicks it closed. John is still shouting, the sounds muffled now, words little more than a blur of noise.

“If you’re here why didn’t you kill him?”

Martin laces his fingers together loosely and tips his head back to look down his nose at Malcolm. “You always want to think the worst of me, don’t you? That _hurts_ , son. But ultimately, I think it says a great deal more about you.”

“So you’re reformed now.”

“Oh, God no. I’d eviscerate that pathetic excuse for a man in an instant and enjoy every second of it. I’m leaving him alive for you, of course.”

Malcolm shakes his head, as if that’ll rattle the pieces of what’s happening around him into place. “But you said we needed to get rid of the evidence.”

“It is the prudent thing to do, however if you’re set on not killing that regrettable failure I’m willing to abide by your decision.” Martin makes a chagrined face as he nods towards a door leading outside and stage whispers, “ _But,_ I wasn’t lying when I said there were a couple other bodies that need disposing of.”

“I need to sit down.”

Martin claps his hands together and gestures to the floral formica monstrosity that is the kitchen table. “Good idea. Another can of chocolate Ensure will do you good. It’s hardly my famous cocoa you used to love so much, but….” He flings open a cabinet and grabs two cans off a shelf full of them. He cracks them both open and holds one up as a toast as he takes the seat opposite Malcolm. “To hard won freedom.”

Malcolm is honestly too stunned to do anything other than clink it and drink it. If Martin is really here with him, his kidnapping would have been the inciting incident for the breakout. It couldn’t have been easy. Certainly wouldn’t have been bloodless. A “couple other bodies” is probably the best he could hope for. Of course Martin has spent years figuring out ways to get out of Claremont and he’ll have covered his tracks, and covered them well. Of that, Malcolm has no doubt. There’s likely no cavalry close behind, and at best the FBI will take two or three days to catch up to this general area--wherever _this_ is. He also has no doubt about that, because even if Colette hates him and his approach, she’s good at her job. And honestly her dislike means she’s definitely done her homework on him and on Martin.

“Do the phone lines work?” he asks, finally. It should probably feel more terrifying sitting next to Martin than it does, but it’s as oddly comforting as it had been in the dark of that basement. A strange sort of backup to rely on when JT and Dani and Gil aren’t here.

“I haven’t tried. I’m not exactly planning on moving in. Your friends will find this place eventually.”

“You know that I have to arrest you.”

Martin lobs his empty can towards the trash like it’s a basketball before turning a bemused eye on Malcolm. “Unfortunately, my boy, as an ex-Special Agent I don’t believe you have the authority. Not to rub salt in the wound. I mean, I’ll be the first to agree that your friends in the Agency did you dirty, but on the other hand I can’t say that I didn’t warn you. Never trust a cop.”

Malcolm sighs heavily on an exhale and holds Martin’s gaze. “You know what I mean.”

“I’m not going back, Malcolm,” he says soberly, and after a beat, “I’d like it if you came with me.”

“You really think I’d do that? Run off with you.” The walls lean in a little closer as if the room itself wants to know, the space around them shrinking and the two of them taking up too much of what remains.

“I said I’d like it, not that I believed it was likely. I’m not the one suffering from delusional thinking.”

And just like that, Malcolm’s world tips off its axis again. This version of his father, no matter how seemingly tangible, no matter John’s screaming, could be the same figment of his imagination he’s been talking to for weeks. If this is a mental break like Dr. Le Deux warned him about, there’s no way for him to know whether or not things are real.

As if sensing his distress--and is that a tick for or against?--Martin reaches out and takes the can from Malcolm’s slack fingers. He stands up to throw it away and braces his hands on Malcolm’s shoulders, gently steering him towards standing with a light pat. “Come on, you could do with a bit more sleep. After that, we’ll talk some more.”

*

Halfway back to the bedroom, Malcolm halts. “Just give me a moment,” he says, and turns into the bathroom instead. He shuts the door-- _shuts Martin out._

The overhead light in its yellowed frosted glass casing buzzes. Malcolm stares bleary-eyed into the mirror hung on the medicine cabinet above the sink. He can practically hear the way the team would comment on his appearance if they were here. He licks his lips and flings open the mirror to dig through the shelves tucked behind it. He’s not even sure what he’s looking for; his hands seem to move faster than his brain.

Mouthwash first to get rid of the stale and chalky taste in his mouth. He grabs the bottle and tears off the cap to take a swig. It’s old, but the sting of it is better than the lingering nastiness and fake chocolate flavor that coats his mouth. And then? His fingers drift across the detritus of decades: bandaids in a tin, a cheap hairbrush with black bristles that’s falling apart, various tubes of antiseptics and pain relievers. Eventually he settles on the rusting metal lid of a small jar of Vaseline.

“I don’t want this,” he says, but he’s already clutching it into his palm. Already anticipating the viscous feel of it spread across his fingers and between his legs. “I don’t. This is insane.”

His heart is racing as he shuts the mirror and stares at himself, desperate and pleading.

 _“Don’t lie to yourself. This might be your only chance,”_ his reflection tells him. He looks down at the jar, at his traitorous muscles that refuse to let it go. Not this. Not when he’s awake. Swallowing hard, Malcolm crams it into his pocket if only to stop looking at it. His reflection watches him keenly. _“You want it all the time and so does your father. You know it’s there. It was there ten years ago hidden between mentions of Dahmer and Kearney. He doesn’t know it, but he’s been waiting for an opportunity like this, same as you.”_

“Shut up,” he tells himself.

His reflection smirks, fingers the collar of a cherry-red sweater, then slips a lollipop the same bright red past its lips. Tonguing the stick to the corner of its mouth, the manifestation of his subconscious raises its brows, amused. _“You shut up,”_ it says. Excitedly it pops the lollipop out of its mouth and tips it towards Malcolm. It leans forward, eyes gleaming and manic. “No wait, we have a better idea: Ask Daddy to shut you up. In fact, you could use a few extra calories and human ejaculate is estimated to be between five and twenty calories. Probably an inaccurate statistic, but who cares. That is the one thing you do love to swallow.”

Malcolm splashes water on his face, ignoring the mad version of himself grinning and pacing on the other side of the mirror. He stands there for a long time under the buzz of the light. He has to operate under the assumption that Martin is real. He needs to find a phone and call Gil. He needs to get paramedics to take care of that wound in John’s leg before he bleeds out. Above all, he needs to get his fucking shit together.

“Malcolm, are you all right in there?”

“I’m fine,” he responds, and repeats it quietly under his breath.

 _“Just this once Malcolm, you can have the real thing. Give him the chance and he’ll take it. He’s a narcissist and he sees himself in you, and you’ve never had a chance like this. Just a little taste…,”_ his reflection moans and slurps a lick, tongue and lips stained red.

It’s true that he’s never had a chance like this before to get answers out of Martin. Outside of Claremont, Martin has no reason to lie to him. And right now he’s feeling very charitable towards his son. Malcolm slicks his hair back from his face and takes a steadying breath. Bracing himself, he pivots and opens the bathroom door forcibly. “We need to talk.”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been doing?” Martin says mildly.

Malcolm pushes past him, steadier now that he has a rough sequence of events mapped out in his mind. There hadn’t been a phone in the kitchen, but he can’t recall if there had been a landline in the bedroom. It’s possible of course that the house doesn’t have one at all. He ducks his head in to peek at the other rooms, most of them filled with the clutter of disuse, boxes bursting with random objects from framed photos to fishing gear.

The bedroom turns up empty, and Malcolm takes a peek out of the window. “Is that your car?”

“It’s the car I arrived in, and as I don’t imagine the former owner needs it anymore I suppose the answer is yes.” Martin’s posture shifts, a bit of pressure in his leading foot betraying subtle excitement. “Are you reconsidering leaving with me? If that’s the case, you can sleep in the car.”

“I’m not,” Malcolm tells him and pivots to face him. He gestures to the space between them. “I need to know: Is that really all you want? You...break out of Claremont in the hopes that once you found me I’d join you on some kind of crazy murder spree?”

“I broke out to stop that man from doing something so stupid as killing you. I knew how hard it would be for your friends to find this place. The convincing you to come with me is a bonus. A little shiny cherry on top of the sundae. Wouldn’t it be wonderful though,” Martin says, taking a single step towards Malcolm. Every movement of his spells out yearning. A decade worth of it built up since Malcolm walked away and still keeps walking away. “You can’t tell me you didn’t love talking shop. Now I can show it all to you first hand, everything from catch to kill. We could learn so much together, you and I.”

“I joined the FBI for a reason, Martin.”

“And they didn’t want you,” Martin says, his tone sharpening slightly as he insists in a rising tone: “ _I want you._ ”

Malcolm flinches at that. A confusing shiver runs along his spine, part fear and part...something else.

Martin draws back with a frown. “What did I say?”

Making a fist, Malcolm forces his eyes back to meet Martin’s. “There are thousands of things I don’t know about myself,” he says. At his side, the bed wavers between feeling like a threat and a reward. “Like what you did to me as a child.”

Martin looks honestly taken by surprise. His brow furrows. “Malcolm, do you think I abused you?”

“I honestly have no idea. Did you?”

“Never! Not in any fashion.” Martin’s nose wrinkles as his expression turns pinched. “Unless you count leaving you with your mother for extended periods of time. In which case: guilty as charged.”

“You swear that you never touched or thought of me sexually.”

“Of course not. You were a child.” There’s an edge of anger building in his voice. Not at the accusation itself, but that Malcolm doesn’t believe him. “I wanted only the best for you.”

“I’m not a child now.”

“No...you’re not.” Martin’s expression shifts again, turns questioning and predatory in a way that makes Malcolm’s heartrate leap up another notch. He’s thinking about it--the implication of Malcolm’s words--and considering what this development might mean for his ultimate objective. His gaze skips briefly to Malcolm’s mouth and he raises a brow. “But you’re still my son.”

“Somehow, I don’t think that really bothers you. Your particular _genius_ leaves a lot of room for moral flexibility.” Malcolm doesn’t bother to say that flexibility might very well have been inherited. By now, Martin knows it--his posture has gone from cautious to a subtle tension coiling in his muscles like a snake waiting to strike. Malcolm suppresses a shiver and spreads his hands to gesture at himself. “Your son is not so blind to his own shortcomings not to know that he’s a walking monument to daddy issues. Mommy issues too, but that manifests in other ways.”

“Daddy issues in the shape of a certain commanding officer I can understand,” Martin says blithely. “To a point, mind you, I’m not saying I condone that look in your eye when you say his name--of course I can hardly throw stones because when that man came knocking at our door twenty years ago, mmph, don’t think I didn’t notice those broad shoulders and strong hands. Malcolm, though...honestly...you refuse to commit murder, but _incest_ is on the table?”

Malcolm breathes in through his nose and out through his mouth. The tiny jar in his pocket feels like it weighs ten pounds. The air around them is warm, forced air still pumping through the vents, but his skin is tight like he’s outside without a coat on.

“I can’t say I’m not flattered. Jessica and I...well, we’ve got great genes. Look at you, my boy, you’re a snack,” Martin continues, a mischievous grin crinkling his eyes. “Did I use that right? The latest slang is so hard to come by when you’re living in a mental institution.” When Malcolm doesn’t respond, the playfulness slips from Martin’s face like a mask falling to the floor. “Why do you want this Malcolm?”

“I dream about it, Martin. All the time,” he says, the words ripping out of him. “I have for _years_. I thought leaving for college would be good for me. A change of pace. But our talks--our little murder chats and serial killer lesson hour--every single time I left I wasn’t thinking about how I could apply my notes to my classes, I was….” Malcolm screws his eyes shut, ambushed by a visceral memory of those train rides back to Boston and the sizzling electric feel that stayed with him after every trip to Claremont. The way he’d count the days until each next visit and inevitably end up at a party on his knees with his mouth stuffed full of sweaty cock looking for a nameless something that he couldn’t admit. And then, later, once he’d realized his vice, all the sex he’s had--the kind John wanted to punish him for. “It’s only gotten worse since I got fired, and these past few weeks, I-- Look, if we do this, maybe it’ll stop. Maybe I won’t want it anymore.”

After a long silence that leaves Malcolm flayed down to the marrow, Martin quietly points out, “Then there’s the alternative.”

“I know,” Malcolm says, and his lashes turn heavy with the heat of tears. What if in his dreams he’s resisting not because he doesn’t want it, but because he’s afraid that he does want it? What if he never stops craving the feel of Martin’s hands on his skin? He’s never even talked to his therapist about this. How could he?

“Oh, son.”

He blinks his eyes open again, steels himself when Martin reaches for him to brush the wetness away from his face. “I don’t want to be like this,” Malcolm tells him, brows drawing tight as his father cradles his cheek. “I want to be normal.”

“I know,” Martin tells him. “But at some point, my boy--my sweet, beautiful boy--you have to come to terms with the fact that you’re not and you never will be. Hardly anyone is. Humanity exists on a scale of degrees, and you and I are points scattered along a vastly different axis than the majority.”

With a shaking hand, Malcolm slips the jar out of his pocket and holds it up between them, an offering balanced on his fingertips. “Here,” he says. “I need to know.” _I need to know just how broken you left me._

Martin glances at it. His thumb caresses the rise of Malcolm’s cheek. “I’d feel better if you slept a bit more. You’re only just getting your strength back.”

With a whine of frustration building in his throat, Malcolm keeps the jar in his palm and starts undoing the buttons of his shirt. “I don’t care. I’m not leaving with you, Martin. I will find a phone to call the police even if I have to walk twenty miles to find one. If you really can’t stomach the idea of having sex with me, then okay, fine, just te--”

Martin’s kiss catches him off guard.

It’s nothing like his dreams, the clash of Martin’s lips on his. Startled, his teeth catch the inside of his cheek and Malcolm tastes blood. He swallows hastily. His fist is so tight it aches.

“You really want me to fuck you, son, I can do that for you,” Martin says, the words delivered in a hot gust against Malcolm’s mouth. His hands clamp to Malcolm’s sides, not gentle and guiding, but a crushing squeeze that’s a terrifying reminder of just how strong his father is. And how weak the captivity has left him.

Malcolm yelps, but he doesn’t struggle against the push towards the bed. He lets Martin bear him down onto it, wriggling back until he’s up against the headboard and watching in fascination as Martin sits up on his knees to undo his own shirt. He’s still shaking, the trembling in his hands spreading into all his limbs until his extremities are tingling. “You really thought about me that way, even then,” Martin says, his gaze on Malcolm hungry now. He’s fixated and elated as he strips and starts on his belt. 

“Even then,” Malcolm repeats softly. He’s staring at Martin’s fingers, watching the pop of the button and the peel of the zipper with grim fascination. He grips at the bedding, slacks tented, and there’s a small voice in the back of his head asking if he’s sure about this. Honestly, he isn’t, but he can’t stop now even if he wanted to because he’s made Martin want this. Or made him aware that he wants it.

“When did it start? No, don’t tell me, some things a father shouldn’t know; a boy ought to have some privacy. But all that time, I had no idea. Usually I’m such a good read of character, but this has been a….” Martin pauses to smile. “Well, it has been quite a surprise.”

Malcolm’s palms are damp and he can feel his heartbeat thudding inside his skull. He sheds his shirt entirely just to do something, to move and not simply stare at his father’s naked torso.

Martin stops suddenly with his jeans pushed towards his thighs, the root of his cock peeking out over the waistband of his underwear. “Wait, does your sister feel this way too?”

The question hits Malcolm like slap across the face and he recoils. “What? No!” He’s pretty sure up until that stunt that nearly got her ex-boyfriend killed, Ainsley has only thought about Martin insofar as how he’s inconvenienced her life. And if she has her own darker daddy issues, Malcolm certainly doesn’t want to know. What’s worse though is he hadn’t considered what asking for this from Martin might mean for her. A heavy cloud of dread pushes into the room to settle around him. Fuck. What has he done? Has his loathsome secret spawned a new nightmare for more than just him alone?

“She’s grown into a very beautiful woman, your sister,” Martin says, and he’s getting harder now even as Malcolm is withering. He smirks as he notices, and his cock is heavy in his hand when he says: “Oh, you want Daddy all to yourself. Some things really do never change.”

“Please don’t talk about Ainsley right now,” Malcolm says. His stomach turns over on itself, but there’s still a hot ripple coursing up his spine the instant Martin’s knuckles drag up the inside of his knee.

“What would you like me to talk about? I’ve always been a fan of a little dirty talk,” Martin says, voice dropping into a deep purr as his hands find the catch at Malcolm’s waist and he starts to slide Malcolm’s pants down. The intake of his father’s breath when he’s stripped naked raises gooseflesh along Malcolm’s skin, and his nipples tighten further when Martin says: “Look how gorgeous you are, my boy.”

This is his chance, he thinks dimly. Not just to slake this hideous desire, but to ask Martin the questions he needs the answers to. Not yet though, if he asks now Martin will probably pull away, wondering if it’s all a trap. Malcolm’s gaze drifts up to catch his father’s, flickers from one eye to the other. “Tell me how you would’ve killed John Watkins if I’d asked you to.”

Martin’s grin is fierce, and he drops down to deliver a biting kiss to the stretch of Malcolm’s neck. He buries a groan there, his hand skidding greedily up the outside of Malcolm’s thigh and over his hip to move higher still, until that callused thumb is drifting over the notches of his ribs. Malcolm arches his back, a gasp shuddering out of him when he feels the hot nudge of Martin’s cock near his thigh. It makes him clench up, all his muscles going taut, and Martin’s beard drags against Malcolm’s cheek as he says, “Nothing elaborate, Malcolm. Then again, nothing swift or merciful. He held you for weeks and that begs a reckoning. He had the audacity to take my son. _My son_.” As he says it, his cock surges, and so does Malcolm’s, blood rushing to answer blood.

“Would you incapacitate him first?” Malcolm prompts. It feels like there’s something else guiding the upward pull of his arms to slide around Martin’s neck, some invisible puppeteer urging his marionette limbs to curl around his father’s wide shoulders. 

“Immobilize not incapacitate. I’d want him to feel it as I removed his organs,” Martin answers. He draws in a deep breath and holds it for a moment before releasing it on a loud, groaning exhale. “Fuck, this is amazing. I never would’ve _dreamed_ \--” His teeth close on his lip and he gazes down lovingly at Malcolm as his hand slips between them to catch Malcolm’s cock.

“Oh God,” Malcolm moans, and there’s anguish in the tightness in his throat even as his body jerks eagerly at the touch. He wants more: the slick push of fingers inside him, the hot nudge of Martin’s cock, the feeling of being filled up and taken. His knees fall wide to beg for it.

“Patience, Malcolm,” Martin says, nuzzling at his throat and breathing in the scent of his skin. “There’s no reason to rush. Let me savor this. Savor _you_. I won’t lie and say I haven’t had my fun with a fellow inmate or two, but as you can imagine sexual partners are slim pickings behind bars. You, my sweet boy, are worth a bit of extra time and attention.”

 _I don’t want your attention,_ Malcolm wants to say, but after all that time with an imagined version of Martin to be looked upon by the real thing is like stepping out of a cave and into the summer sun. For a brief moment he can understand why his mother kept the Whitly name and still at times seems wistful.

“John thought he’d starve you and leave you half-mad and ready to commit murder. Funny isn’t it, that he’s readied you for this instead,” Martin croons as he sits back on his heels. He finds the jar and opens it, dipping his fingers in to gather up a generous amount. He rubs the Vaseline between his fingers to warm it before urging Malcolm to tip his hips up. “Not a bite of solid food for a week; you’re living every bottom’s dream.”

Malcolm can’t help but laugh, a soft and startled sound. He rolls his eyes. “Oh yeah, the dream. Get kidnapped and held by a serial killer, it’s all you need to stop worrying about mess when you want to get railed.”

Mouth edging towards a smile, Martin puts his fingers to Malcolm. “Is that what you want, Malcolm? I’d think you’d want something a little more tender in your state,” he says.

“Just an expression.” A groan melts into a sigh as Martin’s fingers skid over him and circle at his rim. He twists, gaze rising up to the ceiling and mouth going slack as he opens to Martin’s fingers. This is much more like it is in his dreams. The push and curve, the slow and steady stretch.

“You’re so responsive,” Martin says, delighted. “Do you always take the passive role?”

“There’s a loaded and outdated term,” Malcolm murmurs. His hips move and twitch, meeting the thrust of Martin’s fingers as his body yearns for more. The apprehension lingering in him crumbles and fades away, a sandcastle erased by the steady rhythm of the sea. This feels good. Very good. Just like it does when he’s trapped in his dreams and surrendering to the inevitable. After the terror fades and he’s left with only the lust. “No, I don’t only bottom. At least not if we’re talking penetrative sex acts. I suppose I do have a...bit of a preference for it though.” He swallows and silently pushes down the memories of plunging a dagger into his own heart and having a sword thrust up through his chest.

“Just a bit of a preference, hmm,” Martin scoffs, rubbing at Malcolm’s prostate until he’s left writhing.

“Can you please...,“ Malcolm says, desperate for the thrust of a dick to stroke him there and spread that muted unnamable pleasure until it fills his entire body and leaves him quivering. Will Martin fucking him really be so different or can this craving he’s harbored for so long be something he can hope to leave by the wayside. If he can make do with the occasional older top fucking him and calling him son and boy and pinning him down with powerful hands, that would be wonderful. He’s drifting a bit, his attention wavering in a way that Martin’s going to notice and be displeased with. He blinks and fixes his gaze back on his father. “Please fuck me, Martin.”

“You know I miss how you used to call me dad,” he says, fingers hooking inside Malcolm, his thumb nudged up against Malcolm’s perineum to massage him inside and out. Malcolm’s cock swells and twitches. Martin touches his tongue to his teeth. “I think you miss it too, my boy. Why not give it a try, for old time’s sake. After all, can’t get any more wrong than this, now can it?”

Malcolm’s pretty sure it can. This could be happening on that slate floor, warm blood slicked on Martin’s hands and being painted across his body. The awful smell of John Watkin’s open abdominal cavity steaming into the air and the rattle of that heater drying the blood on his skin to something sticky and dark. He shudders and he buries his face in his hands, eyes screwed tight to banish the images-- _the feel of all that blood._ The word sits on the curl of his tongue like a candy-coated poison pill, something that’ll dissolve him down to his bones if he cracks it open. “I can’t,” he says, and his breath turns shallow, his chest tight.

“Oh sweetheart, I didn’t mean to upset you,” Martin says. He slips his fingers out of Malcolm and wipes them off on the bedding, he shifts and lays himself down beside Malcolm. “Come here.”

Shaking, Malcolm allows Martin to draw him into an embrace and this…this is worse. There’s a sob trapped behind his ribs, a hard knot of hurt and longing that wants to shatter him from the inside out. He pushes his face into his father’s neck and clings to him until the worst of the trembling dissipates, until he can pretend he doesn’t want to stay like this, held in these arms forever.

He clenches his fist and forces his eyes open, makes his body move until he’s sliding a leg over Martin’s hip and picking himself up to straddle his father. He sits there, head hung, his fingers curled and digging into Martin’s chest. “Please Daddy,” he whispers, because that at least doesn’t carry the danger of a single syllable sharpened to a killing point.

Wordlessly he tilts his sacrum and reaches down to stroke Martin hard again and guide him. Eyes shut tight, Malcolm sinks back to invite him in, his mouth curving into a soft o that Martin reaches up to trace with a thumb. The push feels like it’ll never end, and he sucks his lip in, his teeth scraping as if to mark the pass of Martin’s touch there. 

Malcolm gathers himself up and opens his eyes, body flexing around the girth of his father’s cock. Slowly, he puts his hands to the pillow on either side of Martin’s head and leans forward to hover over him, made supplicant by the curve of his spine. He gasps as the rise of Martin’s hips off the bed joins them fully until they’re pressed together seamlessly.

“That’s my boy,” Martin says, hand making small circles at the low of Malcolm’s back. His touch slides to Malcolm’s hips when he starts to fuck into him, his thumbs and fingers fanning to try and encircle Malcolm as if trying to feel the push of his cock through muscle and bone and skin. 

“You feel glorious, Malcolm,” Martin tells him.

 _Glorious._ Malcolm’s gaze lifts to find the cross on the wall. He smothers a bitter smile as Martin’s hands drift up his spine, counting the notches, gathering him up vertebrae by vertebrae. Until he has all of Malcolm in his arms, each ligament and fiber of muscle rotten down to the cells.

Malcolm’s pulled into a kiss again, the tongue licking past his lip carrying that chalky chocolate taste. It’s similarly foul and nourishing in the same breath, a thing he doesn’t entirely want but which his body seems to need. He kisses back with a fumbling, hesitant tongue, the soft rocking of his hips carrying him down against the flex of Martin between his thighs.

“If only I could promise to last longer,” Martin says, urgency simmering beneath his words and his skin. He’s holding back, Malcolm can tell. The grip that shifts from his arms to his sides to hips and back again restless in a way that feels like he’s inches from rending Malcolm apart.

Eventually he orders Malcolm off of him and then moves him like a doll, stretching his arms up and pushing his knees high to let him sink back in. It’s better for Malcolm like this, that steady push right where he wants it, blissful and spreading, but he can’t look down at where he’s hard and leaking on his belly, not when he can stare in wonder at the cast of his father’s lashes and the soft halo of curls framing his face.

There are twenty-three people who died looking at these lips that so easily bear a smile. Malcolm arches as Martin fucks into him, each thrust driving more of that death into his body.

“Oh that is better, isn’t it,” Martin says. “Getting that special little place inside you more consistently, aren’t I? There’s an anatomy lesson I never gave you.”

Something red blinks behind Malcolm’s eyes. The wet rip of deerskin and his small hand peeling it back. The yellowish globules of fat and streaks of muscle lashed to bone.

“Was I a good pupil? When I carved them up for you?” he asks dreamily. He reaches down to catch his knee and pull his body into place to make it better than good. To make it perfect.

“Hardly. You were an odd child, Malcolm. You didn’t mind cutting up something already dead, and you watched with such _fascination_ the time I had to cut that doe’s throat, but the minute you were tasked to put a knife to something living. Oh, no. Not even to save a life, and that didn’t change, did it.” Martin’s curled over him now, leaving marks sucked into his skin as he talks, little bruises hidden among the rest. “I wanted you to follow in my footsteps, another Doctor Whitly to pioneer advances in the medical sciences.”

“And to kill with you,” Malcolm says, catching his father’s face and staring at him. “You were training me for that. You wanted me to murder people.”

“I still want it, my boy,” Martin says fiercely, and he shudders as he finishes inside of Malcolm. He licks his lip and scrapes it clean with his teeth as the steady thrust of his cock turns newly wet and slick, and when he looks down Malcolm follows his gaze to find his own belly streaked white and glistening. His own body sated and trembling. “But I think that having you watch might be almost as good.”

Left empty and aching, Malcolm doesn’t resist when Martin lays down to slip an arm underneath to pillow his head and spoon him. “Where will you go?”

“If I told you that, you’d send the authorities after me.”

Martin’s arms tighten, and it’s only when the curl of Martin’s elbow tucks under his chin that he realizes what his father intends to do. “Dad? Are you going to kill me?” he asks, before there’s no space left to breathe.

Kisses are peppered into his hair as his corotid is compressed and darkness sweeps over him. “My sweet boy, not yet.”

*

_Two days later_

Malcolm comes to in a hospital room. The view outside is unfamiliar. He lifts his hand and blinks at the bracelet but the letters swim and are too tiny to focus on.

“Hey kid, welcome back,” Gil says. He stands up and leaves the newspaper he’d been reading on the faux leather of the chair.

“Where am I?” 

“Vermont. Regional hospital. I stalled as long as I could, but,” he glances at his watch, “T-minus two hours until your mother arrives.”

“How did I--?” The rest of the question dies on his tongue and he reaches for the plastic water jug at the table nearby. Gil hastens to pour it for him, handing him the cup and angling the straw. “Thanks. How did I get here?”

“911 call from an unidentified male, likely the Surgeon, with a tip about where to find you, John Watkins, and two missing persons--both dead. Your father killed two nurses and three guards and had been on the run for over a week at the time of the call. You and Watkins were drugged and bound and left at a rest stop. Two additional bodies were in the trunk of the car.”

“Car? If it was a dark blue sedan tinted windows, that was Martin. What about the house? Watkins was keeping me in a basement.”

“Basement tracks with what we know. Best as we can tell, the place we believe you were being held burnt to the ground. Fire crews were called to a rural home about four hours away from where you were recovered. Wasn’t much left, but we did find this….” Gil fishes his phone out of his pocket and pulls up a photo of a ballpoint drawing that’s charred and water-damaged. “Looks like the Surgeon’s work if you ask me.”

Malcolm looks away from the sketch of him asleep in a bed with a cross hung on the wall. It was clearly done after he and Martin had sex. He must’ve been injected with a sedative right after Martin choked him out, and Martin had sat around waiting to make certain there weren’t any complications. Like all those anatomy drawings, he’d been immortalized as a memento. Another one of the Surgeon’s trophies.

“Bright, hey,” Gil’s voice softens, and he doesn’t seem to know where to put his hands. “We don’t need to talk about it, but you should know that the team that admitted you found signs of sexual assault. A nurse took swabs and hair samples because no one was sure how long it would take for you to regain consciousness, but you know your rights when it comes to consenting to a, uh--”

“A rape kit,” Malcolm finishes for him.

“Yeah. DA won’t need the extra charge on top of everything else we’ve got the guy for, so if you don’t want it processed or to go through the rest, you just say the word. Feds and NYPD sweeping in makes for a lot of commotion for a hospital like this and in the jurisdictional complications things can get lost.”

“Run it,” Malcolm says. He struggles to force more words out. “Tell them I’ll do a full exam and run it. The assailant isn’t in custody. It wasn’t Watkins.”

Gil connects the dots instantly. “Shit. Bright, I don’t know what to say.” His hands curl over the edge of the railing and he shifts his weight, shoulders drawing up towards his ears. Guilt and anger crackle in the air around him, and there’s nothing Malcolm can say to assuage it. The truth certainly won’t be a balm. 

“Well, the upside is I’m already so screwed up what’s one more fucked up trauma added to the list,” Malcolm tells him with a wry smile. “But if they catch the Surgeon, maybe this time he’ll get the death penalty. Or at least, a less comfortable cell.”

“You’re stronger than you think you are,” Gil says, and gives Malcolm a tight smile. “I’ll send in the nurse, and I will do everything in my power to hold your mother off as long as I can.”

“Thanks, Gil.”

He’d clearly noted the usage of “they” and not “we” in regards to pursuing Martin but he doesn’t say anything, just tightens his hold briefly on the metal bar and leaves Malcolm alone to count the holes in the ceiling tiles.

Yeah…he’s not going to be on this case. Even if the Agency would let him, he’ll need to stay in New York near Ainsley, just on the off chance that he’s set off a domino-chain of something too awful to think on. Besides, it’s risky for Malcolm to be out there, untethered, no one around to keep him from listening to that still-present echo of himself that says the kit is entrapment. He’d wanted it. He still wants it. That’s the real reason he’s giving up the hunt before it begins.

There are going to be bodies, but maybe not as many as there could have been. His father is patient and driven, but he’s got a new craving to distract him from the thirst for murder. It’s possible that Martin’s need to wholly control and possess him will even usurp the lust for killing.

Malcolm’s not patient like Martin is, but he can try to be. If Gil lets him keep working, he can manage, and eventually his father will circle back, drawn like a magnet to that same poison coursing in his blood.

**Author's Note:**

> Read more of my [Prodigal Son fics](https://archiveofourown.org/works?utf8=%E2%9C%93&commit=Sort+and+Filter&work_search%5Bother_tag_names%5D=Prodigal+Son+%28TV+2019%29&user_id=ponderosa121), or talk to me about this twink getting wrecked on Twitter [@ponderosa121](https://twitter.com/ponderosa121) or on Discord in [Prodigal Son Trash](https://discord.gg/fQaRgBD).


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